10 December 2023
15:00 - 16:00 hrs. Expo City, Trade House Pavilion [LIVE STREAM]
Dubai
, United Arab Emirates

This session uses the findings of the Villars Framework for a Sustainable Trade System - the culmination of a two-year, multistakeholder project involving conversations between trade and sustainability experts - to promote a comprehensive, people-centered, inclusive and climate-aligned trade reform agenda at the World Trade Organization and beyond.  Given the Framework’s aim, the subjects covered in this session relate directly to the theme “making trade policy work for people and the planet”.

The session will highlight the main reform ideas emerging from the Villars Framework including: a net-zero trade system by 2050; a new framework for subsidies that considers sustainability alongside trade impacts; an inclusive and harmonized standard setting process; aligning the trade system with the imperative of a just transition.  Perspectives and concerns of less industrialized countries will be reflected heavily in the session.

The session will propose next steps in promoting the sustainable trade reform agenda.  Since their first “socialization” at the WTO Public Forum and then at the Villars Summit in September 2023, the Villars Framework proposals have been appraised, discussed, debated in a wide variety of fora including among trade negotiators, personnel in international organizations civil society, NGOs and business.

After COP28, the next major multilateral convening of trade negotiators will be at the WTO’s 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13) in Abu Dhabi in 2024, which serves as an opportunity to crystallize and take forward many of the reform ideas emerging from the Villars Framework.  

This panel will consider which of the proposals can and should credibly be taken forward at MC13 and recommend the best path for their success at MC13 and beyond.
 

This event will be live streamed

Join us online

Programme

Moderator:

  • Ms. Jan Yves Remy, University of the West Indies, Director, Shridath Ramphal Centre

Panelists

  • Hoe Lim, Director, Trade and Environment Division, WTO
  • Ms. Chantal Line Carpentier, Head, Trade, Environment, Climate Change, and Sustainable Development Branch, UNCTAD
  • Ms Fiona Shera, Green and Inclusive Value Chains, ITC
Jan Yves Remy
Director
Shridath Ramphal Centre for International Trade Law, Policy and Services

Dr. Jan Yves Remy is the Director of the Shridath Ramphal Centre for International Trade Law, Policy and Services (the SRC), the premier trade institution of the University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus, Barbados, dedicated to training, research and outreach on issues of regional and international trade. She coordinates and lectures under in the SRC flagship Masters in International Trade Policy (MITP) programme and writes frequently on issues arising under Caribbean development and trade law. She holds the position of WTO Chair at the University of the West Indies (Barbados), under the WTO Chair Programme.

Jan Yves holds an undergraduate degree in law from the University of the West Indies (Hons); a masters from the University of Cambridge (Hons); and a PhD (summa cum laude) from the Graduate Institute of Development Studies on the Role of the Caribbean Court of Justice in Caribbean integration.

She previously worked as Senior Associate at Sidley Austin LLP (Geneva and Washington D.C.) and before that as Legal Officer at the Appellate Body of the WTO.

Chantal Line Carpentier
Head of the Trade, Environment, Climate Change and Sustainable Development Branch
UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD)

Chantal Line Carpentier joined UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD)'s Division on International Trade and Commodities (DITC) in 2014, after serving as Chief, UNCTAD New York Office of the Secretary-General. She brings to the Branch over 25 years of work experience in international trade, and environmental and agro-economics.

Prior to working with UNCTAD, she supported the Commission on Sustainable Development and served as Major Groups (of non-State actors) coordinator for the UN Rio+20 Conference and the SDGs negotiations at the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA). She also supported the sustainable consumption and production and sustainable agriculture negotiations.

As Head of the North American Free Trade Agreement Commission for Environmental Cooperations, she lead work on the nexus of environment, economy, and trade. She also served as Agro-environmental Policy Analyst for Winrock International, and post-Doctoral fellow/Brazil office manager for the International Food Policy Research Institute.

She has an extensive list of publications on sustainable agriculture, trade and environment, sustainable consumption and production, financing for sustainable development, stakeholder engagement, global value chains, micro, small and medium enterprises, and economic empowerment of women.

She obtained a PhD. in Agro-Environmental Economics from Virginia Technology and MSc. and BSc. from McGill University.

Aik Hoe Lim
Director of the Trade and Environment Division
World Trade Organization

Aik Hoe Lim is Director of the Trade and Environment Division at the World Trade Organization and leads its work on environmental sustainability, climate change and trade, as well as on the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade. In this role, he has strengthened WTO's partnership with UNEP as well as other international environmental organizations. He led the establishment of WTO's Trade and Environment Week, which is now an annual flagship event for the organization. He joined the WTO in 1999 and served in the External Relations Division, the Director-General's Cabinet and the Trade in Services Division. He was previously Counsellor to two WTO Director-Generals, Advisor to the Director‑General's Consultative Group, and Secretary to WTO committees, working groups and negotiating bodies on services trade and domestic regulation. He represents the WTO in the UN Environmental Management Group and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and is a member of the Advisory Board of the UNEP Global Environmental Outlook.  Some of his publications include contributions to the "Research Handbook on Climate Change and Trade Law" (2017); "Win-Win: How International Trade Can Help Meet the Sustainable Development Goals" (2017); and an edited volume on "WTO Domestic Regulation and Services Trade" (2014).

Co-organizer(s):
UNCTAD, IRENA/Shridath Ramphal Centre for trade (UWI)

Language(s)
English  |    
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